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Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

cnbc.com

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Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#131

Post by selectodude »

archagon wrote: post #119
zer8k wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What does any of this rambling about Harris and the NBC have to do with the fact that 14 members of Trump's former administration (including one general) have agreed that Trump is an outright fascist in an open letter?

These political threads on HN always make me really sad. A bunch of ostensibly intelligent and educated people who see whats happening and either don’t care or are excited about the prospect.

I gave up. Pax Americana had a good run. The parallels to Germany 1933 and Russia 2003 are simply too loud to ignore at this point.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#132

Post by neves »

ahnick wrote: post #76

It seems like it would be less polarizing if it was the default state for news and information outlets to not endorse any candidate ever and just remain as neutral as possible.

First, they are never neutral.

Second: this is what happens in Brazil. Everybody gets angry because each news outlet defends its own conservative candidate.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#133

Post by iwontberude »

bitwize wrote: post #120
AStonesThrow wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Taylor Swift is a billionaire from record and concert ticket sales alone. Between that and her endorsement of Harris, we're lucky to have one billionaire out there with legitimate wealth, unafraid to use it to effect positive change.

[flagged]

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#134

Post by cflewis »

moduspol wrote: post #42
daft_pink wrote: post #34

Is anyone really changing their mind based on some newspaper endorsement? I’m pretty sure everyone knows who they’re gonna vote for at this point.

Now we'll never know who the Washington Post's editorial board would have endorsed. At least Taylor Swift was able to make her recommendation, so I know I'm all set.

Actually we do, the reporting in WaPo itself said they had already put together the copy for Harris and were ready to run it.

The newsroom basically did all they could to say it without saying it.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#135

Post by neves »

daft_pink wrote: post #34

Is anyone really changing their mind based on some newspaper endorsement? I’m pretty sure everyone knows who they’re gonna vote for at this point.

The problem is the the billionaire owner of the newspaper is censoring it, not the number of votes that will change.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#136

Post by maxerickson »

bojan wrote: post #50
ErikAugust wrote: post #32

Does Bezos have uber-intel, and knows Trump is going to win?

He is, unfortunately, a clear favourite to win. You don't have to have uber-intel to know that.

From my corner of rural Michigan, the relative sentiment shift appears to be massively in favor of Harris.

I don't really trust my opinion, and I have a pretty limited perspective on what people in other areas think, but between 2020 and now, there is much increased support for Harris compared to Biden, and much more muted support for Trump 2024 compared to Trump 2020.

With the polling mildly in favor of Harris in key states (but within the margin of error), I wonder how you've drawn your conclusion.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#137

Post by Animats »

jmcclell wrote: post #62

It makes sense in so much as "it's a risk to our business to endorse Harris because of the risk of falling afoul of Trump's vindictive nature should he win." From a fiduciary standpoint, I agree with that assessment. From the standpoint of a citizen, I find the implication alarming. I do believe that this is the reasoning behind the decision, but it is certainly speculation on my part.

A statement along those lines should appear in the next 10-Q filing, under business risks.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#138

Post by dclowd9901 »

moduspol wrote: post #122
dclowd9901 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given he was the one who made the call, what other conclusion would you draw?

Well I mean the most generous take would be that he's come around about Trump and has decided that the editorial board making an explicit endorsement for Harris isn't in his own (or the country's) interests. On X they're floating the theory that he knew this would cause a lot of them to resign, and wanted that for other reasons. All we can do is speculate, I guess.

No need to speculate. It’s in black and white: last time Trump wanted to spite Bezos, he canceled $10Bn in AWS contracts. This is profit driven, plain and simple.

> In a 2019 lawsuit, Amazon claimed it lost a $10 billion Pentagon cloud computing contract to Microsoft because Trump used “improper pressure ... to harm his perceived political enemy” Bezos.

Notably, most presidential candidates aren’t so petty and vindictive as to cancel contracts with political opponents for spite, but we’re talking about Trump here. It would be best if you woke up to this reality.

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